This course is organized in 3 modules, 2 lectures per module.
Module I: Algorithms for Big Data, lecturer: prof. Luciano Gualà.
In this module, we will talk about some algorithmic techniques developed for handling large amount of data that is often available in limited ways. Usually, in this context, the standard way of designing and analyzing algorithms is somehow insufficient.
Module II: The PageRank Algorithm, lecturer: prof. Andrea Clementi.
In this module, we present the key ingredients of the popular Algorithm Page-Rank that is used to rank the web pages. PageRank is used by modern Web Search Engines to assign a popularity score in order to provide effective and fast answers to user queries. In more detail, we first shortly describe the main issues a modern WEB Search Engine must cope with and then focus on the definition of the popularity score of a page and its crucial role. Then, we discuss the key strategic ideas behind the Page-Rank Algorithm and how such informal ideas are transformed into a concrete, provably-good system to efficiently compute the popularity score via linear-algebra and probabilistic tools. Then, we give an overview of a more refined version of the Page-Rank Algorithm that take care about the presence of authorities for specific topics. Finally, we describe potential attacks to the Page-Rank system from Spam Farmers and how to cope with this issue.
References:
- Leskovec, Rajaraman, and Ullamann: Mining of Massive Data Sets (Chpt 5)
- Amy N. Langville and Carl D. Meyer: Google's PageRank and Beyond: The Science of Search Engine Rankings
- Slides of the course (see bellow)
Module III: Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, lecturer: prof. Francesco Pasquale.
In this module we will give an overview of modern cryptocurrencies, focused on Bitcoin and the Lightning network, with an emphasis on the relation between data collection, privacy, and efficiency in blockchain-based systems.
Prof. Luciano Gualà
Università di Roma "Tor Vergata"
Via della
Ricerca Scientifica snc
I-00133 Roma, Italy
E-mail: guala@mat.uniroma2.it
URL: http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~guala